Monday, 7 July 2014

This is a series of posts on Western policy in Iraq. It aims
to cover many misconceptions in anti-war and pro-war arguments and give a more
nuanced understanding. Much of what follows is not remotely new – but its
become increasingly clear that leading pundits are re-writing what actually
happened and, in some cases, a consensus that exists in the academic
literature. There is a selected bibliography for ease of reference at the
bottom. Each of the following sections is written so that each can stand on its
own and so there’s no need to read each one in order:

The best way to explain the substantial part of what was
reasonable to conclude at the time is through explaining how the global
intelligence community got it wrong. First, its important to emphasise that
Saddam’s lack of compliance with the UN inspection regime meant that there was
a default position: we knew that Saddam had WMD. We knew that he had used them
and so when the UNSCOM inspectors left, we didn’t think differently. The
presumption, then, in the face of concealment was that Iraq continued to have
WMD. Kenneth Pollack in The Atlantic in
his essay ‘Spies, Lies and Weapons’ documents several very telling examples of
concealment which exposed Iraq’s WMD programme – and thus fomented mistrust.
The first was the discovery of a document which UNSCOM found

The facility was instructed to remove
evidence of the true activities at the facility, evacuate documents to hide
sites, make physical alterations to the site to hide its true purpose, develop
cover stories, and conduct mock inspections to prepare for UN inspectors

I would ask that a reader remember the words used here very
carefully. A second example was Hussein Kemal (Saddam’s son-in-law) and what he
said about the WMD programme when he defected. He alleged that Saddam
maintained a programme, he gave examples of sites – and UNSCOM found them too.
Saddam was forced to admit that he had a biological weapons site after evidence
came out. Lieutenant General Amer al-Saadi said ‘Iraq had made a political
decision to conceal it.’ To really stress the point, this is how UNMOVIC
summarised a series of Saddam’s machinations:

a number of discrepancies and
questions remain, which raise doubts about the accounting of the special
warheads, including the total number [of chemical and biological Scud-type
weapons] produced: statements by some senior Iraqi officials that Iraq had
possessed 75 chemical and 25 biological Scud-type warheads; the finding that,
at a minimum, 16 to 30 structural rings remain unaccounted for; Iraq’s numerous
changes to its declarations on these matters; Iraq’s admitted action taken to
mislead UNSCOM on the location and number of special warheads; the physical
evidence which conflicts with Iraq’s account of its destruction of biological
warheads; and the fact that no remnants of biological warheads were found by
UNSCOM until after Iraq’s admission in 1995 that it had had an offensive
biological weapons programme (‘Unresolved Disarmament Issues,’ UNMOVIC, March 6
2003)

This is just in
relation to Scud-type chemical and biological weapons. It is just the tip of the
ice berg for the post-Gulf War perfidy that Saddam was part of. This continued
right up until the end of the war (see example from The Bomb in My Garden below). The concealment in the 1990s
continued to have a huge impact on weapons inspectors. Pollack recounts:

In the late spring of 2002 I
participated in a Washington meeting about Iraqi WMD. Those present included
nearly twenty former inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission
(UNSCOM), the force established in 1991 to oversee the elimination of WMD in
Iraq. One of the senior people put a question to the group: Did anyone in the
room doubt that Iraq was currently operating a secret centrifuge plant? No one
did.

This was also the opinion of Hans Blix who said that between
1991-1998 the concealment meant there was ‘no confidence’ that the proscribed
items had been done away with. Before moving from the backdrop to what the
evidence at the time actually said one further point should be stated. This was
not merely a reasonable response to what Saddam was doing but it was a
calculated decision by Saddam not just from 1991-1998 but until the very end.
Frank P Harvey in his tremendous Explaining
the Iraq War explains how this ‘strategic ambiguity’ was a policy of the
regime.

After Saddam was captured, George Piro, an FBI agent
conducted in-depth interviews with Saddam. Here is a telling extract from
Harvey:

Piro: Why
would you say something that suggests Iraq has WMD stocks when, as you say, you
had been trying to convince the UN Security Council that Iraq had complied?

Hussein: Mister George. You in America do not see the
world that confronts Iraq. I must defend the Arab nation against the Persians
and Israelis. The Persians have attacked regularly. They send missiles and
infiltrations against us. If they believe we are weak, they will attack. And it
is well known that both the Israelis and Persians have nuclear bombs and
chemical bombs and the biological weapons

Saddam’s use of this ambiguity – to keep both Iran and the
U.S/UK away was a miscalculation on his part that relied on two elements.
First, he ‘mistakenly believed Tehran was a bigger threat to his regime than
Washington or London.’ He told Piro that ‘he was more concerned about Iran
discovering Iraq’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities than the repercussions of the
United States for his refusal to allow UN inspectors back into Iraq’ (p.249).
Indeed, pretty much for the entire sanctions regime, Saddam didn’t remove his
men from the Iranian border. Israel was also a factor in Saddam’s
miscalculation. According to Ali Hassan al-Majid (better known as ‘Chemical
Ali’)

Saddam was asked about the weapons
during a meeting with members of the Revolutionary Command Council. He replied
that Iraq did not have WMD but flatly rejected a suggestion that the regime
remove all doubts to the contrary, going on to explain that such a declaration
might encourage the Israelis to attack (p.251)

Second, he also misunderstood how serious the U.S and UK were
about his WMD programme. From interviewing Saddam, Piro states that ‘he thought
the United States would retaliate with the same type of attack as we did in
1998 under Operation Desert Fox [i.e. limited air strikes] … He survived that
once, (so) he was willing to accept that type of attack.’ Most shockingly,
according to the Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, a mere few weeks before the
invasion, Saddam didn’t think the U.S would use ground forces (p.254).[1]
This was, perversely, a result of the anti-war sentiment in the Security
Council – particularly France and Russia. Aziz says that Saddam believed that
they would have his back and this would stop U.S/UK action. Saddam’s delusions
about the U.S and UK and how seriously they took things didn’t stop when troops
were finally used:

During the first ten days of the war,
Iraq asked Russia, France, and China not to support cease-fire initiatives
because Saddam believed such moves would legitimize the coalition’s presence in
Iraq... As late as March 30, Saddam thought that his strategy was working and
that the coalition offensive was grinding to a halt (Woods et al, Foreign Affairs)

Thus was the context: a reasonable presumption left over from
the UNSCOM days – compounded by Saddam’s policy of concealment and strategic
ambiguity. The failure to see this context doesn’t necessarily impede seeing
what the near-consensus view was, but it certainly makes it easier to explain. Those
who focus on Western intelligence failures (of which there are many) but do not
talk about Saddam’s policy and miscalculation miss an important part of the
puzzle of how we got it so wrong.

Failing to Rebut the Presumption (2002-3)

To start with what UNMOVIC (the team that went into to
replace UNSCOM) thought, 3 weeks prior to the invasion, they released a report
of ‘Unresolved Disarmament Issues.’ This report is carefully worded and has its
limits. The team was essentially trying to prove that Iraq did not have WMD
left over – i.e., trying to prove a negative in the face of a very strong
presumption. Here’s what they said:

Scuds: [Iraq
claimed it used] 14 Scud-B missiles as targets in a missile interception
project. While such use is supported by some documentation contained in the
so-called Scud files, it is questionable whether Iraq would have really used,
what were at that time, valuable operational assets in the pursuit of such a
project. It cannot be excluded that Iraq retained a certain numbers of the
missiles

Moreover, the lack of documentation
to support the destruction of a significant amount of Scud-B liquid propellant,
and the fact that approximately 50 warheads were not accounted for among the
remnants of unilateral destruction, suggest that these items may have been
retained for a proscribed missile force. After investigating Iraq’s statement
that, due to the limited storage lifetime, the propellants would now be
useless, UNMOVIC has assessed that the propellants would in fact still be
usable and would therefore need to be verified as destroyed (p.23-4)

SA-2 Missile Technology: Of particular concern is the limited amount of documentary evidence
concerning the activities at Al Sadiq. Questions arise as to why this work was
not declared to UNSCOM... based on the knowledge UNMOVIC presently has on these
projects, they can be considered as initial steps towards the development of an
indigenous liquid propellant engine capability (p.29)

Scud-type biological and chemical weapons: UNSCOM verified the destruction of
73 to 75 of the 75 special warheads that Iraq declared, a number of
discrepancies and questions remain, which raise doubts about the accounting of
the special warheads, including the total number produced.... uncertainty
remains concerning the types and numbers of chemical and biological agents it
filled into the special warheads. The finding of degradation products related
to nerve agents, on some warhead remnants suggests that its declaration may not
be complete. [Note too that UNMOVIC says that because a physical test
contradicted Iraq’s assertion of WMD destruction, ‘it would be logical to assume that some missiles and associated propellant
might also have been retained.’] (p.42-43)

R400 and R400A (BWs and CWs): Some fragments [found in 2003] had a black stripe and there
was evidence on some fragments of an epoxy coating, both indicative of
biological agent-filled bomb... As it has proved impossible to verify the
production and destruction details of R-400 bombs, UNMOVIC cannot discount the
possibility that some CW and BW filled R-400 bombs remain in Iraq

Chemical munitions: Iraq still had significant stocks of conventional 122-mm warheads and
155-mm projectiles similar to those previously modified for use with chemical
agents. Iraq’s industries appear fully capable of modifying these conventional
munitions for use with chemical agents as well as the indigenous production of
most or all of their components (p.55)

Anthrax: Iraq
declared that the decision to destroy bulk BW agent unilaterally was made in
early July 1991, and the actual destruction of the agent was said to have been
carried out at Al Hakam in July/August 1991. However, it seems improbable that
the bulk agent that had been deployed out in the field would have been returned
to Al Hakam for destruction in July 1991... [It] seems highly probable that the
destruction of bulk agent, including anthrax, stated by Iraq to be at Al Hakam
in July/August 1991, did not occur... Based on all the available evidence, the
strong presumption is that about 10,000 litres of anthrax was not destroyed and
may still exist (p.97-8).

Wheat smut: Iraq’s account of wheat smut is
inadequately supported by documentation; the quantity of agent produced,
consumed and destroyed cannot be confirmed. At the same time, if infected wheat
spikes had been retained from production in 1988, it is uncertain whether the
spores would now be viable... Iraq’s capability to produce this anti-crop agent
has not diminished. UNMOVIC is especially concerned with the broader question
of Iraq’s intentions with regard to biological agents that could be used as
economic weapons. (p.108-9).

Undeclared BW-agents: Iraq has not declared that it produced such [TSB] organisms.
It is therefore a matter of concern that Iraq had obtained bulk quanties of
such media. In this regard, it is noted that the declared destruction of the
Brucella isolate which was acquired in 1986 was not supported by evidence,
which adds to the concern surrounding the accounting for TSB (p.117)

These extended extracts from the UNMOVIC report show what UN
weapons inspectors thought prior to the invasion. They speak of unaccounted WMD
and a clear interest and programme in maintaining CWs and BWs. Hans Blix’s
statement is even more stark (which probably explains why Tony Blair quotes his
27 January 2003 statement at length in A
Journey). Here are some of his statements:

13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by
the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500
bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500
bombs... Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this
biological warfare agent [anthrax], which it states it unilaterally destroyed
in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production
and no convincing evidence for its destruction. There are strong indications
that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of
this was retained after the declared destruction date...

Blix’s statements are significant because of his subsequent
activism against the Iraq War. At the time, though, his statements about Iraq
WMD were as fear-inducing as a statement from the Bush administration. For all
the failures of Western representation (which I will discuss below), given
Saddam’s previous use of WMD, given his concealment, given the reasonable
presumption and given this report it was reasonable to conclude that Iraq had
WMD. There was also a flow of reliable information which seemed to reinforce
the view that Saddam had WMD.

One example given by Woods et al in their Foreign Affairs article is worth
mentioning – it is why I asked the reader to recall the wording of the document
showing that the regime sent out an order to conceal and clear WMD. In 2002,
the U.S

...intercepted a message between two
Iraqi Republican Guard Corps commanders discussing the removal of the words
“nerve agents” from “the wireless instructions,” or learned of instructions to
“search the area surrounding the headquarters camp and [the unit] for any chemical
agents, make sure the area is free of chemical containers, and write a report
on it,” U.S. analysts viewed this information through the prism of a decade of
prior deceit. They had no way of knowing that this time the information
reflected the regime’s attempt to ensure it was in compliance with UN
resolutions.

What would a reasonable person conclude from this intercept? Would
they have rebutted the presumption that Iraq had a WMD programme and was
continuing in its attempts to conceal it? I think the answer is clear. It
wasn’t just intercepts and inspectors that fuelled the presumption – it was
other Iraqi actors too. This is just one of the examples of the bits of
evidence that supported the presumption:

Rihab Rashid Taha (a senior Iraqi
scientist) was asked about the unaccounted for anthrax listed in Blix’s reports
– she failed to provide inspectors with any useful answers. After the war, the
same microbiologist confessed to dumping the lethal bacteria close to Saddam’s
palaces.... The deception, in other words, was understandably misread, but it
was unfortunately the most plausible (risk averse) interpretation in light of a
decade of deception (Harvey, p.259)

Reasonableness

Without relying on a single British dossier or U.S briefing,
it is clear there was a reasonable case that Iraq maintained WMD; clear
chemical and biological agents and an active programme for pursuing further
WMD. It is why there was such wide acceptance that there was WMD. Kenneth
Pollack summarises the phenomenal level of consensus:

Somewhat remarkably, given how
adamantly Germany would oppose the war, the German Federal Intelligence Service
held the bleakest view of all, arguing that Iraq might be able to build a
nuclear weapon within three years. Israel, Russia, Britain, China, and even
France held positions similar to that of the United States

Pollack makes clear that the view of Iraqi WMD was widespread
amongst governments. Most surprisingly, it was widespread amongst officials in
Saddam’s regime. Woods et al note that ‘a number of senior Iraqi officials in
coalition custody continued to believe it possible that Iraq still possessed a
WMD capability hidden away somewhere.’ Why did they believe this? For the same
reason that I did, the UNSCOM inspectors that Pollack mentions and essentially
everyone believed:

Coalition interviewers discovered
that this belief was based on the fact that Iraq had possessed and used WMD in
the past and might need them again; on the plausibility of secret,
compartmentalized WMD programs existing given how the Iraqi regime worked; and
on the fact that so many Western governments believed such programs existed.

It’s a conclusion was littered throughout independent reports
from reputable think tanks:

In September 2002, the independent,
London-based think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies
(IISS), published a dossier providing a thorough published guide to the
consensus view of the period. It
described the toxic materials still unaccounted for, and then moved on to the
more speculative area concerning what had happened since 1998. It was possible,
but not proven, that production of both biological and chemical weapons had
resumed (A Choice of Enemies, p.413)

In the next section I will go through several prominent
examples of how intelligence is alleged (and was in fact) used unreasonably –
but these examples don’t move away from one stark conclusion. This conclusion that
that Iraq had WMD – despite being completely wrong – was a completely
reasonable one. Through the prism of the presumption, the continual reports
coming from various sources, Saddam’s miscalculations and policy there could
not have been a different conclusion. Even if you ignored this mistakes laid
out in the next section (for reasons both above and below), you’d still come
out with the same conclusion. Its why we
had this near-consensus. As Robert Jervis states in Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and Iraq
War:

while there were not only errors but
correctable ones and that analysis could and should have been better, the
result would have been to make the intelligence assessments less certain rather
than to reach a fundamentally different conclusion... A responsible judgment
could not have been that the programs had ceased (p.124, p.155)

There is even a good bulk of academic opinion which holds
that it was reasonable to conclude Iraq had WMD written post war.[2]
This shows the limits of intelligence rather than the incompetence of
intelligence agencies.[3]
To give one example which shows the limits of intelligence (even when actors
are not deliberately deceiving as Saddam was):[4]
when President Obama was deciding to authorise the operation against Bin Laden,
he asked different intelligence agencies for their assessment on whether Bin
Laden was inside the Abbotobad compound. Here is how The Guardianreported the Deputy Director of the CIA’s response:

“Mr President, if we had a human
source who had told us directly that Bin Laden was living in that compound, I
still wouldn't be above 60%." Morell said he had spent a lot of time on
both questions – WMDs and Abbottabad. "And I'm telling you, the case for
WMDs wasn't just stronger, it was much stronger”

The intelligence mistakes in the CIA, clearly, didn’t stop in
2003 – and they are unlikely to stop because of how reasonable these judgments
can be despite being so wrong. This should be apparent from everything from the
intelligence about Al Qaeda striking the U.S prior to the 9/11 attacks to the
Israeli strike on the USS Liberty. For reasons that will be laid out in the Part
3, this conclusion should not make us reluctant when facing threats like
Saddam.

There is another conclusion that follows from all of the
above: there was no point in waiting for more inspections. Saddam’s two
miscalculations means that even when we had troops knocking on his door, he
didn’t think we were serious. And because he didn’t think we were serious even
when the war began, he continued his policy of strategic ambiguity. There is
also the technical issue that Saddam simply could
not prove that he had abandoned his WMD programme:

... there was no way for Blix to
establish the truth, because the proof he needed (and the evidence UNSCR 1441
demanded) no longer existed – the documents inspectors required for proof of
compliance had long since been destroyed, ironically because Saddam was
motivated by the ongoing threat of sanctions to remove all evidence of WMD
programs, including proof that he had already destroyed proscribed weapons
(Harvey, p.152)

Indeed, as should be apparent from the fact it was reasonable
to conclude that Saddam had WMD anything he did do to reveal the remnants of
his WMD programme would have been insufficient: he would have had to have shown
us WMD stocks that did not exist. Clearly, he could not have done this – part
of the reason why war was inevitable.

Unreasonableness, Intelligence and WMD

The reason I wanted to write this section is because neither
side in the debate seems to address each other. My view is that those angry
about the pre-invasion presentation of the intelligence have a point – but
simply that it wouldn’t have changed the conclusions and, as will be apparent
from Part 3, the justifiable rationale for the war. But that doesn’t excuse the
errors of both the Blair and Bush administrations: politicians should be
entirely transparent, balanced (not prosecutorial) and they should be held to
standards of evidence.[5]
What follows is overwhelmingly a summary of incompetence, not deception. Rather
than liars, a better analogy would be those acting for the prosecution - they
were over-zealous in their case that Saddam had WMD and it showed in their
presentation (this is more a result of status and confirmation bias than
deliberate deception). The Senate Intelligence Senate Committee went through
the claims of Bush administration officials and found, in relation to WMD,
their statements matched the available evidence but were conveyed as beyond
doubt where there were dissents.[6]

The United States: Beyond the National Intelligence Estimate

U.S claims about Iraq’s relationship with Al Qaeda are an
example of this zeal in making a case for war. It is now clear there was no
significant relationship – but it was also quite clear at the time. Three claims
were made to support this link – all were weak. First, that al-Zarqawi was in
Iraq with the regime’s support and was collaborating with the regime. As
Freedman points out, Zarqawi’s group was, at that time, ‘unaffiliated and
largely based in the Kurdish north’ (A
Choice of Enemies, p.407). Second, that the 9/11 ring leader Mohammed Atta
met up with Iraqi security officials in 2001. This was not considered credible
by the FBI or the CIA (Pfiffner, p.27) and yet Cheney still said the meeting
was ‘pretty well confirmed.’ The Joint Intelligence Committee completely
rejected any cooperation between the two. Third, it was based on evidence
obtained by torture of al-Libi (which probably didn’t vex members of the Bush
administration but definitely was not credible).[7]
As the New York Timesreported

While he made some statements about
Iraq and Al Qaeda when in American custody, the officials said, it was not
until after he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific
assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation
for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical
weapons.

Christopher Hitchens believed there was a connection on the basis
of al-Zarqai’s presence – it’s open to some to take this as evidence that it
wasn’t completely unreasonable to conclude there was an AQ-Iraq link. I do not
take that view and am glad that my own government never made the link. But
again, the fact there was reasonable evidence of low-level meetings between the
two should discount evidence of deception.[8]
There are two points that need to be made in relation to Iraq-AQ links. First,
many confuse claims about 9/11’s impact on risk assessment and Iraq with claims
of links between the two. Pfiffner (p.26), like many, is guilty of this. He
quotes the following statement by Bush as an example of an ‘implied link’:

Some citizens wonder, ‘after 11 years
of living with this [Saddam Hussein] problem, why do we need to confront it
now?’ And there’s a reason. We have experienced the horror of September the
11th.

But Bush is not saying that 9/11 was linked to Iraq here.
What he is saying is that the risk calculation after 9/11 changed. Bush
explained his as not being able to trust tyrants with WMD which they could
deliver to terrorists. The point was that common ideas of deterrence were no
longer in play: threats had to be dealt with before they materialise (this will
further be discussed in Part 3).[9]
The second point to note about the Iraq-AQ links is that its prominence in run
up to the war started to wane as people like Blair (and British officials)
pushed for them to stop using that line of argument. Freedman notes this:

Yet while such suggestions [of an
Iraq-AQ link] helped create a political climate in favor of war, they could not
sustain international diplomacy. By the summer of 2002, it was apparent that
there was no clinching evidence demonstrating a link with al Qaeda. Woodward
reported Rice’s view that it would be impossible to get international support
on Iraq’s human rights record, and the terrorism case seemed “weak or
unprovable.”... With the terrorism issue, there was “the most disagreement
within the bureaucracy.”... In September, after meeting Bush, Canadian prime
minister Jean Chrétien told reporters that when he asked about links between al
Qaeda and Iraq, the president replied, “That is not the angle they’re exploring
now. The angle they’re exploring is the production of weapons of mass
destruction” (A Choice of Enemies, p.408-9).

This is largely unacknowledged. What the U.S produced in
relation to weapons of mass destruction wasn’t that divergent from the
consensus mentioned above. Nonetheless U.S intelligence agencies often
disagreed about several aspects but the administration took whichever view
which made the situation seem bad. The National Intelligence Estimate itself
had several caveats[10]:

The dissenting views were highlighted
in color and boxed text, not buried in footnotes as was the norm during the
Cold War, and the dissents in this case were, as Tenet noted, ‘‘an unprecedented
sixteen pages of the ninety-page NIE.’’ Tenet also pointed out that ‘‘the
phrase “we do not know” appears some thirty times across ninety pages. The
words “we know” appear in only three instances. (p.603-4)

The uncertainty was lost in public statements. But still, on
the general question of WMD, rather than specific bits of evidence (like
aluminium tubes or yellowcake from Niger), ‘Bush cannot be fairly blamed for
using such widely accepted claims, even though little evidence of the weapons
was found in Iraq after the war’ (Pfiffner, p.44). I am not going to handle the
issue of biological and chemical weapons which I think I have handled
sufficiently but will focus on what many anti-war activists consider to be the most
egregious examples of deception. In relation to whether Saddam was pursuing a
nuclear weapon, the NIE concluded that

we assess that Saddam does not yet
have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any, he remains intent on
acquiring them. Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its
nuclear program about the time that UNSCOM inspectors departed--December 1998

It suggested that without fissile material, it would take at
least 5 years to develop a weapon. With material from abroad, it would take at
least 2 years. The British dossier (discussed below) said much the same in Feb
2002:

Although there is very little
intelligence we continue to judge that Iraq is pursuing a nuclear weapons
programme... Recent intelligence indicates that nuclear scientists were
recalled to work on a nuclear programme in the autumn of 1998, but we do not
know if large scale development work has yet recommenced. Procurement of
dual-use items over the past few years could be used in a uranium enrichment
programme... while sanctions remain
effective, Iraq cannot indigenously develop and produce nuclear weapons; if
sanctions were removed or became ineffective, it would take at least five years
to produce a nuclear weapon. This timescale would shorten [to one to two years]
if fissile material was acquired from abroad

There is clear uncertainty in this extract – but despite the
uncertainty, the JIC still concluded that Iraq was pursuing a nuclear
programme. The IAEA a few months after the NIE was released stated that they
had found ‘no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear related
activities in Iraq’ (see here) – but this would not have been much
comfort given the reasons explained above about concealment and Saddam’s
motives. Take, again, one more example of Saddam’s miscalculation from The Bomb in My Garden, written by Mahdi
Obeidi (an Iraqi scientist at the forefront of the nuclear programme):

A different order landed on my desk
in early December 2002, shortly after the arrival of UN weapons inspectors.
“move your documents from your offices to the basement.”... The regime had
obviously panicked now that inspectors were fanning out across Iraq for the
first time in four years.

How should this have been interpreted? Moreover, while there
was a fixation on attempts by Saddam to obtain uranium from Africa (see below),
this wasn’t the only thing. The JIC outlined six items which had no legitimate
non-nuclear purpose which Iraq had apparently sought. There were several
independent assessments (like that from IISS) which concluded much the same.
Moreover, in a critical response to the Africa claim, Professor Dombey reveals something that shows why Iraq having
a nuclear weapons programme wasn’t an
unreasonable claim: ‘Saddam was known by both Britain and the US to be sitting
on a stockpile of 500 tonnes of uranium ore - so had no need to purchase any
more.’ The fact that it was plausible that Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear
weapons programme should speak volumes as this was the weakest of all WMD
claims.

On the question of specifics of intelligence on nuclear
weapons, there was arguably unreasonableness. The following statement made by Bush
in the State of the Union took on the same significance in the U.S as the ’45
minutes’ claim took in the UK:

The British Government has learned
that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from
Africa

The issue? The NIE stated that the status of the arrangement
was ‘not known’ and there was a dissent which called said the claim was highly
dubious (unlike the general issue of WMD) – which is why the British government
was referenced. Condoleezza Rice stated that doubt was not ‘communicated to the
President.’ Pfiffner is not generous at all to Rice in making this claim (there
were series of conversations, memos etc., about taking the claim out) but it
doesn’t seem that Rice’s claim is true at all. Bush in his memoir addresses the
issue briefly:

In my 2003 State of the Union
address, I had cited a British intelligence report that Iraq sought to buy uranium
from Niger. The single sentence in my five-thousand-word speech was not a major
point in the case against Saddam. The British stood by the intelligence... In
July 2003, former ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote a New York Times column alleging that the administration had
ignored his skeptical findings when he traveled to Africa to investigate the
Iraq-Niger connection. There were serious questions about the accuracy and
thoroughness of Wilson’s report, but his charge became a prime talking point
for critics of the war (Decision Points, p.103)

Much was made of the fact that alleged documents that showed
an agreement between Niger and Iraq appeared to be forged. But two caveats have
to be made: first, as is clear from Bush’s account, people were not persuaded
by Wilson’s report. Indeed, ‘Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s [found]
that those who read Ambassador Wilson’s reporting on his visit to Niger did
not, in fact, see it as discrediting the reports of Iraqi interest in African
uranium’ (Froscher, 2010, p.421). Moreover, the British assessment was not
based on forged documents, it was based on several sources which the Butler
Review found to be ‘well founded’ (p.123). Iraqi officials had gone to Niger in
1999 and they had previously attempted to buy uranium ore. Second, and more
importantly, Froscher notes that

the supposed Iraqi interest in
yellowcake was not a major factor in the IC’s assessment of the status of
Iraq’s program. Prior to March 2003, when the key reports were shown to be
forgeries, the IC downplayed them not so much because of doubts about their
authenticity but because, even if true, they added little to the picture. The
key issue, again, was not whether Iraq was interested in reconstituting its
nuclear program - that was, at the time, taken as a given - but how close Iraq
was to having the bomb (p.421).

An assessment of whether it was reasonable to conclude Iraq
did seek yellowcake cannot be made without knowing more about the British
intelligence – unless one takes the Butler Review at face value. But it really
is not as simple as quoting dissents from Wilson and the lack of certainty with
the NIE. What is reasonable to conclude, however, was that this was not key to
the bottom line intelligence summary.

The other specific claim that created much controversy (about
aluminium tubes) is more appropriately handled later but I will make one point.
There were dissents but its far too easy, with hindsight, to say that the
dissents should have been accepted. There are correctible mistakes in the
bureaucracy and assessment in this particular mistake – but it should certainly
downplay accusation of deception (if not unreasonableness) to note that the NIE
did consider the tubes evidence of a nuclear programme. The charge was
sufficiently serious that the weapons inspectors investigated the charge
relentlessly (Obeidi ad Pitzer, p.187). The tubes, though not the right size
for a nuclear purposes were of a high quality which fomented suspicions (Ibid,
p.196). Ultimately it was the wrong conclusion and the presentation did not
speak of any doubt but it should definitely downplay accusations of deception. And
again, it was not pivotal in pre-war intelligence estimates (this should be
apparent from the fact that the Department of Energy still conclude Saddam
reconstituted a nuclear programme despite disagreeing with the tube story).

UK Intelligence: Blair’s Overreach

Critics of U.S and UK policy never seem to acknowledge the
divergent views within American agencies or between officials. They also very
rarely talk about the divergence in evidence between the U.S and UK. Which
brings us to British intelligence assessments: the September dossier prepared
by the British government on the basis of JIC intelligence was at the time
considered fairly mundane[11]
– a claim that seems to have been accepted by Chilcot –
except for the 45 minute issue. In the foreword, Tony Blair wrote Saddam’s
‘military planning allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of
an order to use them.’ The Butler Review was perfectly right to note that this
claim should not have been made without reference to the type of weapons
(p.156) – it was a reference to munitions, no missiles.

Blair subsequently said that he didn’t know that that
the report referred to munitions rather than ballistic missiles – which is
enough to suggest that the record should have been corrected. Blair has since
tried to downplay the 45 minute claim by stating that

Of the 40,000 written parliamentary
questions between September 2002 and the end of May 2003 when the BBC made
their broadcast about it, only two asked about the forty-five-minutes issue. Of
the 5,000 oral questions, none ever mentioned it. It was not discussed by
anyone in the entire debate of 18 March 2003. So the idea we went to war
because of this claim is truly fanciful (A
Journey, Blair, p.)

He’s right and wrong. The idea that this particular claim was
pivotal in the decision to go to war is fanciful. But he’s also wrong to
downplay the fact that both the Joint Intelligence Committee and he acted with
undue care by including it without reference to the type of weapon.
Fortunately, Blair has said it would have been ‘better to correct it in light
of the significance it later took on.’ Accusations
that Blair lied should be seen as unreasonable in light of the near-consensus,
the available evidence and the British government’s refusal to go along with
the AQ-Saddam link and, quite simply, logic. John Rentoul notes how such a
conversation would have gone:

"I've got this brilliant plan
for joining the American invasion of Iraq: we'll say it's all about weapons of
mass destruction and when it turns out that there aren't any, everyone will
hate me for ever. How does that sound?" Great plan, they [i.e., the
cabinet] all said, and made the necessary preparations.

Blair’s presentation of the evidence, however, was arguably
prosecutorial at times. He stated in his foreword that it was ‘beyond doubt’
that Saddam continued to produce chemical and biological weapons. The JIC
itself had described some evidence being ‘sporadic’ and ‘patchy’ and so it
inevitably raises the question of why Blair stated it was ‘beyond doubt.’ Blair
answered this question himself at the Iraq Inquiry:

Sir Lawrence Freedman: Given that [evidence was in some places described as patchy etc], was
it wise to say that intelligence is ever beyond doubt? Wasn't this setting
yourself up for a higher standard of proof than it might be possible to 16
sustain?

Blair: I think
what I said in the foreword was 18 that I believed it was beyond doubt..

Sir Lawrence Freedman: Beyond your doubt, but beyond anybody's doubt?

Blair: If you
-- if I had taken, for example, 2 the words out of -- even the 9 March 2002 or
3 the March 2002 JIC assessment, it said, "It was clear that ..." Now,
if I said, "It was clear that" in the foreword, rather than "I believe, beyond
doubt", it would have had the same
impact.

The point was that the JIC still concluded that it was ‘clear that Saddam continues his
programme.’ But I’m instinctively reluctant to accept that ‘beyond doubt’ is
the same was ‘it is clear that...’ It may just be my profession that leads me
to conclude that the two should not be conflated – but even a non-lawyer like
Sir Lawrence Freedman notes that it does sound like a ‘higher standard of
proof.’ Blair’s explanation should, however, discount accusations of deception
but not unreasonableness. It is often funny that much of the academic
literature which criticised Blair – attempts to do so by comparing his
statements with JIC intelligence (which, as stated, concluded what the
near-consensus had concluded).[12]

Reasons for Unreasonableness

This subsection aims to give an explanation for the
correctable failures (i.e., not those which were reasonable to make and which
can be explained by Saddam’s policy of denial and reasonable interpretation of
reliable reports). The New York Times famously apologised for its coverage of the lead up – and in that they
drew particular ire to Iraqi dissidents:

The problematic articles varied in
authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended
at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors
and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility
has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks... Complicating matters
for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by
United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq.
Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for
misinformation from these exile sources.

The most famous of these dissidents was Curveball. He later admitted he lied and would do it again to The Guardian. It should be noted that The Guardian is wrong to suggest that
Curveball ‘triggered’ the Iraq war or that the U.S was ‘duped.’ As Jervis
notes, ‘the INC sources were discounted by the ICs, though not by the vice
president’s office, the civilians in the Defense Department, and the media’ (Why Intelligence Fails, p.140). The
Rob-Silberban Commission agreed noting that INC sources had ‘minimal impact on
pre-war assessments’ (p.108). The intelligence community, then, did not have as
many shortfalls – but the reliance on human intelligence by some did certainly
cause significant overreach.

Aside from reliance on human intelligence by some and being
over-zealous in presentation, there were a series of bureaucratic inefficiencies
which lead to correctable mistakes. Take the example of the aluminium tubes
that were purchased but obtained by the U.S. The NIE concluded (i) Iraq was reconstituting
its nuclear weapons programme and (ii) the aluminium tubes were evidence of
this – but the State Department and the Department of Energy dissented (the DoE
only dissented on the latter claim). Jervis explains how correctable mistakes
compounded the intelligence failure (I make no apologies for quoting Jervis at
length):

Immediately after gaining access to
the tubes, the lead CIA analyst concluded that they were designed for a
centrifuge. Since he had a background in the enrichment industry, his opinion
carried great weight. His superiors were then quick not only to endorse his
conclusions but to convey them to policymakers, and even put them into the PDB,
before other agencies had a chance to analyze the material and reach a
different verdict. Although the NIE acknowledged the disagreement and
uncertainties, CIA could not easily give up its established position. The
effect of this error was magnified by the fact that the DCI was the head of the
CIA as well as the IC. In the latter capacity he was supposed to arbitrate
differences among the intelligence agencies, but as director of CIA, Tenet was
closer to CIA analysts than to those from other parts of the IC. The dissents
from INR and DOE therefore received less of a hearing than they might have in a
similar situation today, when there is a Director of National Intelligence.
Indeed, it appears that Tenet did not even know that there was a dispute until
the NIE was being written... Furthermore, the communication channels within DOE
were clogged, in part because segments of it were scattered around the country,
and the views of their experts were not always well represented at high-level
meetings (Why Intelligence Fails, p.142-3)

When the NIE was being done,
Curveball’s allegations about BW programs appeared to be corroborated by three
other sources, but one later recanted, and another had already been branded a
fabricator by the Defense Intelligence Agency in May of 2002. Nevertheless,
owing to bureaucratic miscommunication, allegations about biological weapons
programs from that source still found their way into the October 2002 NIE (Betts,
p.602)

These are both correctable mistakes, inherent in centralised
structures and bureaucracy, not evidence of deception or even cognitive biases.
Some in the academic literature (Pfiffner is just one example) have tried to
conclude that many intelligence failures were a result of politicisation (i.e.,
political pressure or direction). This is thoroughly unconvincing.[14]
As Jervis notes, Tennet rebuked Bush for his mishandling of the evidence – this
would only have been necessary had the intelligence agencies not given the
administration exactly what it wanted (p.132). After extensive interview with
people involved in the U.S intelligence community he found very little evidence
of politicisation (p.133). And that’s not particularly surprising, the CIA
pushed back against Saddam-9/11 links, forecasts about the post-invasion phase
despite ‘administration statements to the contrary, repeated inquiries and
challenges that can only be interpreted as pressure.’ But more importantly

[First] it appears that the belief
that Iraq had an active WMD programs was held by all intelligence services, even of those countries that opposed the
war. While this does not mean that U.S and UK ICs were not affected by
political atmosphere, it does show that they did not need political pressure to
reach their conclusions

[Second] positions taken by...
different parts of the American IC also casts doubt on the politicization
thesis. The State Departments INR was the most skeptical member of the
community about nuclear weapons and Air Force intelligence dissented on the
UAVs y yet State and Defence were the two most policy-oriented agencies. The
Department of Energy (DOE) dissented on the aluminium tubes, and there is no
evidence that political pressure was exerted (p.134)

There were many correctable failures: specificity was lost in
presentation as a result of cognitive biases, bureaucratic mistakes and
reliance on faulty human intelligence. In some cases, politicians ended up
making exaggerated claims because they did not understand the nature of the
intelligence (like Blair’s 45 minute claim). But as I stated above, this would
not have made a difference to general conclusions that made up the
near-consensus in the intelligence community (and confirmed by subsequent
academic opinion).[15]
Jervis brings these two elements together well when he shows the effect of
specific evidence against the effect of the reasonable presumptions that led to
general conclusions:

This makes sense of the exchange in
which Bush reacted to CIA’s presentation of what could be declassified to
convince the public that Saddam was developing WMD by asking if “this is the
best we’ve got” and receiving Tenet’s infamous reply, “Why, it’s a slam-dunk!”
Bush was focusing on the specific evidence he had just heard; Tenet was moved
by the plausibility of the entire picture (p.155)

As Harvey notes, in debates in Congress the issue of faulty
intelligence was raised prior to the war. ‘The disagreement between the CIA and
Department of Energy (DOE) over the relevance of aluminium tubes was also
raised’ but ‘these distorted intelligence items were marginal to the larger WMD
picture and threat’ (Harvey, p.149). Both Jervis and Harvey conclude

...even if there had been no errors
in analytic tradecraft I believe that the best-supported conclusion was that
Saddam was actively pursuing all kinds of WMD, and probably had some on hand.
The judgment should have been expressed with much less certainty, the
limitations on direct evidence should have been stressed, and the grounds for
reaching the assessments should have been explicated. But while it would be
nice to believe that better analysis would have led to a fundamentally
different conclusion, I do not think this is the case (Jervis, p.42)

Even if I haven’t convinced you that this was necessarily the
case for every claim made by U.S and UK officials, I hope I have shown that the
overwhelming bulk of faulty intelligence was either reasonably concluded or not
a result of deception. More importantly, most of the specific evidence that
people found problematic really had no major impact on the overall evidence or
justification for war. But importantly, its perfectly reasonable to be angry at
the lack of nuance, the lack of understanding and the lack of caution exercised
by U.S and UK officials.

Post-war intelligence

For reasons that will become apparent in Part 3, the issue of
whether Iraq had WMD is not as fundamental as commonly claimed to the
defensible rationale for the liberation of Iraq. Iraqi intention and future
capability is just as important. From the post-war intelligence reports, there
can be no doubt of Iraq’s intention:

Saddam wanted to recreate Iraq’s WMD
capability—which was essentially destroyed in 1991—after sanctions were removed
and Iraq’s economy stabilized, but probably with a different mix of
capabilities to that which previously existed. Saddam aspired to develop a
nuclear capability—in an incremental fashion, irrespective of international
pressure and the resulting economic risks... In Saddam’s view, WMD helped to save
the Regime multiple times... his lieutenants understood WMD revival was his
goal from their long association with Saddam and his infrequent, but firm,
verbal comments and directions to them... (Comprehensive Report of the Special
Advisor Report on Iraq's WMD, Vol. 1)

This was the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group. The Iraq
Survey Group is littered with examples of how Saddam was serious about getting
WMD (including prior to the war) and uncovered activities UNMOVIC was not aware
of:

Imad Husayn ‘Ali Al ‘Ani, closely
tied to Iraq’s VX program, alleged that Saddam had been looking for chemical
weapons scientists in 2000 to begin production in a second location...
Purported design work done in 2000 on ballistic and land attack cruise missiles
with ranges extending to 1000 km suggests interest in long-range delivery
systems... M16 was planning to produce several CW agents including sulfur mustard,
nitrogen mustard, and Sarin (Ibid).

They found that Operation Desert Fox (a small scale operation
undertaken by the U.S and UK in 1998) significantly weakened their nuclear
programme. It would be interesting to ask those against the Iraq war whether
they would have authorised the operation. Sanctions also played a role in
weakening the WMD capability but as they note sanctions were weakening:

By 2000-2001, Saddam had managed to
mitigate many of the effects of sanctions and undermine their international
support. Iraq was within striking distance of a de facto end to the sanctions
regime, both in terms of oil exports and the trade embargo, by the end of 1999
(Ibid).

I will expand on the erosion of sanctions and containment in
Part 3. Of course the Iraq Survey Group also did not find ‘evidence that Saddam
Husayn possessed WMD stocks in 2003.’ There are many on the right who like
peddle stories of a limited amount of WMD being found. And there is a very
small grain of truth in this:

It is not literally true that no WMD
were found in Iraq. After 2003, according to a U.S. Army report,
‘‘approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin
nerve agent’’ were discovered. These were decaying remnants of pre-1991
stockpiles, found in scattered ‘‘small numbers,’’ not the types maintained in
operational condition that were expected (Betts, p.597)

Neoconservative blogger Kyle Orton draws attention to two cables revealed by
Wikileaks which indicate mustard gas was found (see here and here). But this really is getting the overstating
the discoveries: the intelligence indicated stocks, it indicated more than a
few non-operational remnants. Which brings me to another post-war
rationalisation used by a few people on the fringe. Again, here’s Kyle Orton:

James Clapper said “that he believed
that material from [Saddam's] illicit weapons program had been transported into
Syria“. There was certainly some heavy traffic into Syria during the
invasion... Whether we will ever know the answer is doubtful—though opening the
archives of the Assad regime might be helpful—but those who say there were “no
WMDs” in Iraq are wrong twice: they refuse to acknowledge what actually was
found [i.e., remnants referred to above] and show a distinct lack of interest
about what wasn’t

This line of argument is misleading. Yes, there should be
some investigation into but to make the conclusion that Orton does is rash. This
is because the Iraq Survey Group concluded that

Based on the evidence available at
present, ISG judged that it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD
material from Iraq to Syria took place. However, ISG was unable to rule out
unofficial movement of limited WMD-related materials (Addendum to the
Comprehensive Report, p.1).

The key words in this extract are ‘unlikely’ in the first
sentence and ‘limited’ in the second. Kyle has told me that he accepts that the
view that arms were shipped is a ‘fringey one and it is not one [he]
particularly subscribe[s] to’ but I think there’s certainly a problem in giving
these theories undue credence. The Israelis seems quite keen on this idea but
they have not produced an iota of evidence for their claims. Aside from the
lack of evidence of any such movement (let alone whether the movement was of
stocks of WMD), the conclusions above should caution against accepting the
claim: Saddam did not expect an invasion, he did not expect to lose control of
his regime. His miscalculation meant that he had no reason to transfer his
supposed WMD.[16]

[1] Saddam was not alone in thinking this, Harvey (2011)
says those in his inner circle thought “war would last only a few days and look
very much like 1998, with air strikes, military operations and ground troops,
if any, focused primarily in the south
of Iraq” (p.254)

[2] Thomas Graham Jr. and Keith A. Hansen, Preventing Catastrophe: The Use and Misuse
of Intelligence in Efforts to Halt the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass
Destruction, see a summary by Froscher (2010): “They judge that it was
reasonable to conclude, as had nearly all other observers at the time, that
Saddam was still pursuing WMD” (p.420-1) Harvey (2011): “The result was a
widespread international consensus in 2003 that Saddam retained proscribed
weapons – again, this was the only reasonable interpretation of a decade of
intelligence on the regime’s behaviour” (p.197). Jervis (2010): “the most
reasonable assessment would have been that Iraq probably (but not certainly)
had active and broadly based WMD programs and small stockpile of chemical and
perhaps biological weapons” (p.155, see also the quotes throughout this post
from p.124 and p.134). Betts (2008): “Although the bottom-line analytic
conclusion was wrong and the caveats were insufficient, in the absence of
adequate collection, it was the proper estimate to make from the evidence then
available. No responsible analyst could have concluded in 2002 that Iraq did
not have concealed stocks of chemical and biological weapons” (p.598). Pfiffner
(2004): “The administration’s inference that Saddam Hussein was continuing his
previous weapons programs was not an unreasonable conclusion, one that was
shared by intelligence agencies in other countries” (p.44). Two examples of
past claims: Freedman (2008): “Whereas the discussion of the terrorist link was
deeply controversial, that was not the case with the assumption that Iraq had
stocks of WMD and was engaged in an active process of deception” (p.410). Hans
Blix told the Iraq Inquiry that “I, like most people at the time, felt that
Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction” (p.30 of his testimony available
here: http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/51945/20100727-blix-final.pdf)

[3] To emphasise what should be apparent: this is not a
condemnation of the intelligence services but a point about the limitations of
intelligence. The intelligence services are vital in stopping terror, a fact
that I have pointed out again and again is the fact that MI5 has successfully
managed to stop several attacks. Even more specifically, British intelligence
was pretty much spot on in relation to other countries in proliferation. Cf.
Betts, p.605: “The Butler Report investigated all proliferation-related
intelligence projects, including those related to Libya, Iran, North Korea, and
the A.Q. Khan network in Pakistan, as well as Iraq. These other intelligence
projects were more or less successful, which made the Iraq case ‘‘one failure
against four successes. Hence, it was viewed as a failure due to Iraq-specific
factors that somehow tripped up an otherwise effective system,’’ not as
evidence of thorough breakdown.” But, see also Mount and Mongomerty (2014, Intelligence and National Security,
Volume 29, Issue 3, 357): “This paper seeks to catalogue and evaluate the
intelligence work surrounding 16 of the 25 states that are thought to have
pursued nuclear weapons and to provide a framework for evaluating the causes of
distorted intelligence estimates of nuclear proliferation.... We find that the
US has overestimated nuclear programs much more frequently than it has
underestimated or correctly estimated them."

[4] Bush gives one interesting example of an intelligence
failure in his memoirs. Bush recalls: “Mr. President,” George [Tenet, Director
of the CIA] said, “we think we have a chance to kill Saddam Hussein.” They had
received intelligence that Saddam was hiding out in a complex called Dora Farms.
Bush ordered strikes against the complex. He goes on to say “A witness had seen
a man who resembled Saddam being carried out of the rubble at Dora Farms. But
as the days passed, the reports changed. The operation was a harbinger of
things to come. Our intent was right. The pilots performed bravely. But the
intelligence was wrong” (Decision Points,
p.254)

[5] Cf. Pfiffner p.45: “The issue here is not whether the
war with Iraq was wise; whether it was a wise war will become clear only with
the passage of years. At issue here is a matter of democratic leadership.
Citizens must trust the president because they do not have all of the
information that he has. If the president misrepresents the nature of crucial
information, he undermines the democratic bonds between citizens and president
upon which this polity is based”

[6] Select Committee on Intelligence, ‘Whether Public
Statements Regardiing Iraq by U.S Government Officials Were Substantiated by
Intelligence Information’. The conclusion is overwhelmingly that the President
and other officials generally conveyed what intelligence stated at the time. This
conclusion should be reinforced by the fact that the dissents (at the back of
the report) are fairly convincing.

[7] The intelligence community had already noted that
al-Libi was an unreliable source. There was some doubt in the CIA as to what
was true. In the extremely critical documentary ‘Hubris’ by MSNBC’s Rachel
Maddow (based on the book Hubris),
Phillip Mudd is quoted as saying ‘he said two different things at two different
times. We will tell the policy consumers.. both stories, you choose to believe
what you choose to believe but I don’t know which ones accurate.’ This, again,
should downplay accusations of deception but certainly not unreasonableness. Incidentally,
the whole documentary is misleading because it argues that the reliance on
unreasonable information was a primary driver of the intelligence – it
selectively quotes dissents with hindsight and ignores the predominant
evidence. This idea should be considered untenable for the reasons this post
gives. Just to give two examples of how bad Hubris
is – they quote a memo of a meeting between Tommy Franks and Rumsfeld. The
memo has a section called ‘how start?’ – the documentary considers this to be ‘what
would the pretext be?’ – in reality, the memo was not “creating” a pretext, it
clearly assumes existence of WMD (the first bullet point was “Focus on WMD” and
the document listed practical concerns like how to stop “movement of WMD”).
Most significantly, under the options for “building momentum for regime change”
it has several options and significantly it states “might not have to go all
the way [to regime change].” There is
nothing sinister about the memo. Second, as Maddow states the NIE showed that
the “evidence was wrong” it freezes on a extract which says Iraq “does not have
nuclear weapons” – a claim the administration never made. See here for the full
memo: < http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show-16>

[8] Intelligence (accepted by the British as well)
indicated there were low-level meetings in the 90s; this was confirmed in
post-war intelligence reports based on documents from Saddam’s regime. See, for
example this DIA report which found that ‘Saddam collaborated with known Al
Qaeda affiliates and a wider constellation of Islamist terror groups’ – report
available at NY Sun< http://www.nysun.com/foreign/report-details-saddams-terrorist-ties/72906/>
There was also dodgy information circulating, most famously Laurie Mylroie’s Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's
Unfinished War Against America. This was a shoddy book but when the
cognitive biases were in operation, her allegation that Saddam was behind
almost every terrorist act in the 90s had force. This is entirely consistent
with Richard Dearlove’s (Director of MI6) assertion in the Downing Street Memos
that ‘the intelligence and facts were being ﬁxed around the policy’ – he was referring to the AQ-Saddam link.
In a particularly shoddy article which should be disproved by this article, Fitzgerald
and Lebow (2007) use this statement as evidence that the motivation of the U.S
had nothing to do with WMD (i.e., they incorrectly interpret it as a statement
about WMD generally rather than cognitive biases working on the AQ-Saddam
link). Finally, see the footnote above
about what the CIA stated.

[9] Cf. Blair’s remarks to the Iraq Inquiry: “if September
11 hadn't happened, our assessment of the risk of allowing Saddam any
possibility of him reconstituting his programmes would not have been the
same... Here is what changed for me the whole calculus of risk... The point about
this act in New York was that, had9 they been able to kill even more people
than those 3,000, they would have, and so, after that time, my view was you
could not take risks with this issue at all, and one dimension of it, because
we were advised, obviously, that these people would use chemical or biological
weapons or a nuclear device, if they could get hold of them--that completely
changed our assessment of where the risks for security lay... from September 11
onwards-- we obviously had to deal with Afghanistan, but from that moment,
Iran, Libya, North Korea, Iraq, the machinery, as you know, of AQ Khan, who was
the former Pakistani nuclear scientist and who had been engaged in illicit
activities and in distributing this material, all of25 this had to be brought
to an end” available at < http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45139/20100129-blair-final.pdf>

[10] Again, see n.2, and see also Betts (2008): “With the
benefit of hindsight, one might argue that the strictly correct estimate in
2002 should have been that the intelligence community simply did not know
whether Iraq retained WMD or programs to obtain WMD. That would have been
intellectually valid but would have abdicated the responsibility to provide the
best support possible to the policy process” (p.604)

[11] The Butler Review quotes the Today Programme, BBC Radio 4: “Well to be honest it’s not that kind
of document. It’s,it’s actually rather sensibly cautious and measured in tone
on the whole” – see p.127: - in the footnotes, it goes on to say “Some Editors
noted that the ‘45 minute’ story attracted attention because it was of itself
an eyecatching item in a document containing much that was either not new or
rather technical in nature.” The reason that it was considered to ‘mundane’ and
‘measured’ was the near-consensus on the view that Iraq had WMD.

[12] For an example, see J. N. L. Morrison, 'British
Intelligence Failures in Iraq', Intelligence
and National Security, Volume 26, Issue No. 4, p.515: While the dossier
itself was a fair summary of the JIC’s conclusions over the years, the
Executive Summary painted an over-stark picture, while the Prime Minister’s
foreword went completely over the top

[13] A further example of this is given by the Butler
Review: “even taking into account the difﬁculty of recruiting and running
reliable agents on Iraqi issues, we conclude that part of the reason for the
serious doubt being cast over a high proportion of human intelligence reports
on Iraq arises from weaknesses in the effective application by SIS of its
validation procedures and their proper resourcing...”

[14] Cf. Select Committee on Intelligence, ‘Whether Public
Statements Regardiing Iraq by U.S Government Officials Were Substantiated by
Intelligence Information’, Conclusions point patently against such an
interpretation.

[15] Cf. Harvey (2011), p.152: “It is also true that in the
interest of generating support for a policy the administration deemed
essential, a more balanced and nuanced interpretation of the intelligence did
not always emerge. But the balance in question was never between, on the one
hand, the WMD case the administration was making and, on the other, some
alternative, dissenting view that Saddam had nothing. Rather, the debate
consisted of how much relative weight should be assigned to specific items,
like operational links to Al-Qaeda or aluminum tubes, in the context of a
general consensus that Saddam had, or was developing, some level of WMD. No one
in the government (or international community) came close to making the
argument that the regime was clean, for one simple reason – there was no way to
arrive at that conclusion in the absence of UN inspectors, or in the absence of
a UN inspections report defending that conclusion. Neither UNSCOM nor UNMOVIC
ever came close to producing such a report”

[16] Cf. Kris Alexander, ‘No, Syria Doesn’t Have Saddam’s
Chemical Weapons’, Wired available at
< http://www.wired.com/2012/07/syria-iraq-wmd-meme/>
: “If something moved — like, say a convoy of Winnebagos of Death heading for
Syria — it could be detected and killed... Do you think anyone in the
administration or the military would have turned down the chance to justify the
war before it started? Further, does
anyone honestly think that if the Bush administration had good evidence that
the material was somehow making its way into Syria, it wouldn’t have acted?”